Taking It Home
If any financial executives are wondering what all that commotion was Sunday morning, we may have an answer.Bruce Marks and around 500 members of his housing advocacy group, the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, were planning demonstrations outside CEOs' homes in Greenwich, Conn., and Mount Kisco, N.Y., to protest home foreclosures.
The planned targets included William Frey, the president of Greenwich Financial Services LLC, a hedge fund that sued Bank of America Corp. after the Charlotte company agreed to modify more mortgages.
The group also planned a stop at the home of Bruce Rose, the head of Carrington Capital Management LLC, Mr. Marks said Friday. "That is going to be interesting, because he has an electric fence."
Mr. Marks said he would post the home addresses and phone numbers of all the executives whose homes he visited. He can access bankers' private information, he said, because many of his volunteers have information-technology, security, and janitorial jobs at big banking companies.
Prins' Tough Talk
In a blast from the past, Curtis Prins is weighing in on the corporate credit union mess.Longtime readers will remember Mr. Prins from his 30 years on the House Banking Committee's staff. He left Capitol Hill in 1993, but he is in his 35th year as a director of Wright Patman Congressional Federal Credit Union, and he is clearly ticked about the $1 billion rescue of the corporate ones, including U.S. Central Corporate Credit Union.
In a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and other lawmakers, Mr. Prins asked for an investigation of how well the National Credit Union Administration has regulated the corporate credit union system.
In a separate letter to NCUA Chairman Michael E. Fryzel, Mr. Prins wrote that the agency's board should resign.
"For decades, the commercial banking industry has sought to damage credit unions," he wrote to Mr. Fryzel. "The actions of your board will do more to damage credit unions than all of the attacks of the bankers."
The rescue will require regular credit unions to foot the bill through higher fees paid to NCUA.
"U.S. Central has been mismanaged for years, and your agency did nothing to correct the problem," Mr. Prins wrote to Mr. Fryzel. "You let the institution run amok, and now you want well-run credit unions to solve the problem."
How They Roll
It's hard to escape the notion these days that you are what you ride.After Citigroup Inc., which has received $45 billion from the government bailout, took heat for the Citi plane Sandy Weill used after stepping down as the company's chief executive, Roll Call's "Heard on the Street" column slammed Nick Calio, the company's top lobbyist, for coming in a chauffeured sedan last week for meetings with lawmakers.
Roll Call failed to point out that Mr. Calio was joined by Vikram Pandit, the current CEO.
"In this age of anti-ostentation, it's all about rolling in a humble ride," said the paper, which gave props to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who came to the Hill in a taxi after tax problems tied to his use of a Cadillac service threatened his nomination to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Spending on fancy perks by bailout recipients isn't sitting so well with members of Congress these days," Roll Call said. "Of course, it's nothing new for uber-lobbyists to roll around town in plush hired cars. But at a time when shoppers at luxury stores are forced to seek plain paper bags to carry their Prada, don't we all have to sacrifice a bit?"
Frank as Messenger
We know Rep. Frank has a busy schedule, but now add receptionist to his many roles.The Massachusetts Democrat revealed at a hearing last week that he had to run interference when things grew icy between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair over the crafting of the bailout.
As lawmakers asked critical questions about the Troubled Asset Relief Program to John Bovenzi, the FDIC's chief operating officer, Rep. Frank broke in to say the FDIC should not be the target of such questions.
"In fairness to Mr. Bovenzi, it's the Treasury Department" that is in charge of Tarp. "The FDIC made none of these decisions. As a matter of fact, by the end" of the Bush administration, "the head of the FDIC and the secretary of the Treasury were barely on speaking terms," Rep. Frank said. "I know that, because I was taking the messages between them."
Patriarca's New Job
Michael Patriarca, a veteran of the last financial crisis, has taken a new job with Promontory Financial Group LLC as the consulting firm continues its work helping banks respond to the troubled environment.Promontory announced Thursday that Mr. Patriarca had joined the firm as a managing director in the San Francisco office. He was a senior regulator in the 1970s and 1980s with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, rising to deputy comptroller of multinational banks in 1983. After that he held positions at the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco.
He also has held jobs at Wells Fargo & Co. and Visa International. Promontory "has a fairly deep group of people who have been both in banks as managers and people with regulatory experience," he said. "I fall into that category with the addition of a lot of scar tissue."
Kelsey to Law Firm
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP said Jan. 29 that it had hired Sara Kelsey, the former general counsel at the FDIC, to work in its New York office.Ms. Kelsey stepped down from the FDIC in October after nearly two years there. She previously was the deputy superintendent and general counsel at the New York State Banking Department and held senior positions with the Federal Reserve Board and Chemical Bank, now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
New Staff Chief
John Michael Gonzalez has stepped down as the chief of staff for Rep. Melissa Bean to lobby on a range of issues, including financial services, at Johnson, Madigan & Peck.Elizabeth Hart, who has worked on financial services issues in Rep. Bean's office for four years, most recently as deputy chief of staff, has succeeded Mr. Gonzalez.
Rep. Bean, a moderate Democrat from Illinois, sits on the House Financial Services Committee and has advocated an optional federal insurance charter and mortgage underwriting reform.
